New alignments for the digital age: insights into connected learning

Educational technology research and development - In an age of ready access to people, online spaces and information, canonized formal knowledge acquisition is being disrupted. The emergence of...     

Student perspectives of engagement in learning in contemporary and digital contexts

ABSTRACT

Increasing significance has been ascribed to student engagement, as a measure of success of both teachers and programs. However, since users of the term commonly tend not to explain, rationalise or problematise their understanding of engagement, its value to understand or transform learning may be limited. While clarification has occurred in conceptual work, there is a lack of empirical work that extends beyond understandings of engagement-as-behaviour, as well as insufficient work exploring what students understand engagement to be. Further, much work on engagement is rooted in physical campuses and face-to-face delivery, which represents an incomplete picture of how students actually engage in study. This article investigates student perceptions of engagement in two blended learning Initial Teacher Education programs. It offers a critical discussion of how research can be re-considered in light of changing learning contexts and changing understandings of ways to investigate engagement. The findings of this study support previous work that found multiple levels and meanings of student engagement exist. New complex and multidimensional models of engagement are proposed, which can open new possibilities for designing studies and analysing findings. This article argues that including and questioning physical, virtual and political contexts and power, affect, relationships, linearity and essential measurability are important features of new models of engagement.     

Learners,learning and new technologies

In 1997 the UK Government introduced a major five‐year programme to support and evaluate the successful use of new technologies in life‐long learning. Known as the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) Strategy, this ambitious vision addresses ICT infrastructure, content and practice. Recent OECD studies suggest that the main issues addressed through the NGfL are common to those being tackled throughout the developed world (OECD 2002). This paper will look at the implications of these strategies for curriculum improvement and reform. A theorisation of the possible relationships between different features of ICT and learning will be offered. Finally the contrast between home and school based use of technologies, and the implications for learning will be considered.Apprentis, apprentissage et nouvelles technologies. En 1997, le gouvernement britannique a lancé un programme d'envergure de cinq ans pour soutenir et évaluer l'emploi réussi de nouvelles technologies dans l'éducation tout au long de la vie. Ce programme est connu sous le nom de la stratégie du National Grid for Learning (NGfL), une vision ambitieuse qui touche à l'infrastructure des TIC, leur contenu et leur pratique. Des études récentes de l'OCDE suggèrent que les buts principaux recherchés par le NGfL sont communs avec ceux recherchés dans tous les pays développés (OCDE 2002). Cet article étudie les implications de ces stratégies pour l'amélioration du curriculum et la réforme et prétend montrer que l'e-mail, les conférences par informatique et le web peuvent potentiellement changer la nature des rapports entre apprenants, enseignants, écoles, communautés locales, nationales et internationales. L'article considère trois perspectives de TIC éducatives: comme outil, soutien pour l'enseignement et agent révolutionnaire et leurs relations avec l'évaluation. Finalement, le contrat entre la maison et l'usage des technologies basées à l'école et leurs implications pour l'enseignement seront considérés.Lerner, Lernen und neue Technikologien. 1997 führte die Regierung des Vereinigten Königreiches ein umfangreiches Fünfjahresprogramm ein, um die erfolgreiche Verwendung neuer Technologien im lebenslangen Lernen zu unterstützen und auszuwerten. Diese als 'National Grid for Learning Strategy (NGfL)' bekannte ehrgeizige Vision ist auf ICT- Infrastruktur,, Inhalt und Übung fokussiert. Neue OECD Studien legen nahe, daß sich die durch das NGfL angesprochenen Hauptfragen jenen, die ¨uberall in der entwickelten Welt gestellt werden, (OECD 2002) gleichen. Dieses Papier betrachtet die Auswirkungen dieser Strategien auf Lehrplanverbesserung und -Reform und wird belegen, dass E-Mail, E-Conferencing und die Nutzung des Web die Art der Beziehungen zwischen Lernenden, Lehrern, Schulen sowie lokalen, nationalen und internationalen Gemeinschaften potentiell verändern können. Dann werden drei Perspektiven von Bildungs-ICT im Verhältnis zur Einschätzung betrachtet: als Werkzeug, als Lernunterstützung und als 'revolutionärer Agent'. Zuletzt wird der Kontrakt zwischen Zuhause und der schulischen Verwendung von Technologien und die daraus sich ergebenden Auswirkungen auf das Lernen betrachtet.     

Boundary brokering for cross-cultural professional learning in international school contexts

Although much research has been done on the internalisation of education, issues related to intercultural professional learning, especially in the school education context, remain underexplored. This study examines the potential of boundary brokering in facilitating cross-cultural professional learning in an international school context. This article reports the qualitative findings from an interview study with seven non-ethnic Chinese language teachers who resided at the borders of Chinese and western communities of practice on their boundary brokering experience in bridging the different norms of being and practice in the Chinese teacher community and the western communities in international schools in Asia. Interview responses from the participants show that the participants’ cultural brokering generated critical and eclectic perspectives and practices, and reshaped the power landscape in the workplace. At the same time, their cultural brokering was shaped by the interactions among power relations within and across communities of practice, social suggestions on cultural brokering and the boundary brokers’ self-positioning. The findings suggest that cultural brokering could serve as a potential teacher professional development tool to foster reciprocal learning across culture borders. The complex network of influencing factors at play suggests that, in order to facilitate positive cultural brokering, it is necessary to adopt a systemic approach that underscores resetting valued skills and expertise within and across communities, creating a positive school culture that encourages reciprocal learning and managing individual teachers’ brokering mentalities and capacities.     

Situated cognition and learning environments: implications for teachers on- and offline in the new digital media age

John Seely Brown suggested that learning environments should be spaces in which all work is public, is subject to iterative critique by instructors and peers, and in which social interaction is primary. In such spaces, students and teachers engage in a situated cognition approach to teaching and learning where “cognitive accomplishments rely in part on structures and processes outside the individual”. Here we describe a qualitative analysis of a socially situated learning setting that aimed to develop children who can design, analyze, critique, and transform media, subjecting existing social media, their designs, and their peers’ designs to public and iterative critique. In this setting, adult mentors supported children’s self-expression, self-reflection, and skillbuilding through authentic, socially situated reading, writing, and discussion, and media production. Creating and leveraging such spaces is essential for preparing all children for successful experiences in the new knowledge economy in formal and informal educational settings.     

Connecting digital elements with physical learning contexts: an educational escape-the-room game for supporting learning in young children

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the current study was to investigate students’ overall learning process during the implementation of educational escape-the-room games (EERGs) in classrooms. This study adopted a two-stage case-study methodology, namely single-case and multi-case designs. In the first stage, a well-designed EERG for a Chinese language class was developed on a web-based game platform. A total of 15 second-grade students from a public elementary school in Taiwan used tablet computers to engage in problem-solving tasks in the EERG. In the second stage, five schoolteachers from other elementary schools who had adopted similar EERGs in their classrooms in the previous academic year participated in the study to share their instructional experiences. The results indicated that students actively collaborated with their team members to address problem-solving tasks during the EERG activity. Positive collaborative learning experiences and learning attitudes towards the EERG were identified in the students’ self-reflection worksheets.     

Functions of digital learning within the international mobility programme – perspectives of university students and staff from Europe

Education and Information Technologies - This paper is based on research studies conducted in the academic community of students and staff members (teachers, researchers and administrative staff)...